scholarly journals Hierarchical effects of choice-related activity and neural encoding during feature selective attention

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennifer L. Mohn ◽  
Joshua D. Downer ◽  
Kevin N. O’Connor ◽  
Jeffrey S. Johnson ◽  
Mitchell L. Sutter
Keyword(s):  
Selective Attention ◽  
Auditory Cortex ◽  
Rhesus Macaques ◽  
Motor Preparation ◽  
Broadband Noise ◽  
Single Neurons ◽  
Neural Encoding ◽  
Related Activity ◽  
Attention Task ◽  
The Relationship

AbstractSelective attention is necessary to sift through, form a coherent percept of, and make behavioral decisions on the vast amount of information present in most sensory environments. How and where selective attention is employed in cortex and how this perceptual information then informs the relevant behavioral decisions is still not well understood. Studies probing selective attention and decision making in visual cortex have been enlightening as to how sensory attention might work in that modality; whether or not similar mechanisms are employed in auditory attention is not yet clear. Therefore, we trained rhesus macaques on a feature selective attention task, where they switched between reporting changes in temporal (amplitude modulation, AM) and spectral (carrier bandwidth) features of a broadband noise stimulus. We investigated how the encoding of these features by single neurons in primary (A1) and secondary (lateral belt, ML) auditory cortex were affected by the different attention conditions. We found that neurons in A1 and ML showed mixed-selectivity to the sound and task features. We found no difference in AM encoding between the attention conditions. We found that choice-related activity in both A1 and ML neurons shifts between attentional conditions. This finding suggests that choice-related activity in auditory cortex does not simply reflect motor preparation or action, and supports the relationship between reported choice-related activity and the decision and perceptual process.New & NoteworthyWe recorded from primary and secondary auditory cortex while monkeys performed a non-spatial feature attention task. Both areas exhibited rate-based choice-related activity. The manifestation of choice-related activity was attention-dependent, suggesting that choice-related activity in auditory cortex does not simply reflect arousal or motor influences, but relates to the specific perceptual choice. The lack of temporal-based choice activity is consistent with growing evidence that subcortical, but not cortical, single neurons inform decisions through temporal envelope following.

Choice-related activity and neural encoding in primary auditory cortex and lateral belt during feature selective attention

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennifer Leigh Mohn ◽  
Joshua D Downer ◽  
Kevin N. O'Connor ◽  
Jeffrey Scott Johnson ◽  
Mitchell L Sutter
Keyword(s):  
Selective Attention ◽  
Auditory Cortex ◽  
Rhesus Macaques ◽  
Primary Auditory Cortex ◽  
Motor Preparation ◽  
Broadband Noise ◽  
Neural Encoding ◽  
Related Activity ◽  
Attention Task ◽  
The Relationship

Selective attention is necessary to sift through, form a coherent percept of, and make behavioral decisions on the vast amount of information present in most sensory environments. How and where selective attention is employed in cortex and how this perceptual information then informs the relevant behavioral decisions is still not well understood. Studies probing selective attention and decision making in visual cortex have been enlightening as to how sensory attention might work in that modality; whether or not similar mechanisms are employed in auditory attention is not yet clear. Therefore, we trained rhesus macaques on a feature selective attention task, where they switched between reporting changes in temporal (amplitude modulation, AM) and spectral (carrier bandwidth) features of a broadband noise stimulus. We investigated how the encoding of these features by single neurons in primary (A1) and secondary (middle lateral belt, ML) auditory cortex were affected by the different attention conditions. We found that neurons in A1 and ML showed mixed-selectivity to the sound and task features. We found no difference in AM encoding between the attention conditions. We found that choice-related activity in both A1 and ML neurons shifts between attentional conditions. This finding suggests that choice-related activity in auditory cortex does not simply reflect motor preparation or action, and supports the relationship between reported choice-related activity and the decision and perceptual process.

scholarly journals Irrelevant Predictions: Distractor Rhythmicity Modulates Neural Encoding in Auditory Cortex

2020 ◽  
Vol 30 (11) ◽  
pp. 5792-5805 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shiri Makov ◽  
Elana Zion Golumbic
Keyword(s):  
Selective Attention ◽  
Auditory Cortex ◽  
Sensory Response ◽  
Neural Responses ◽  
Neural Encoding ◽  
Attention Task ◽  
Baseline Activity ◽  
Temporal Predictability ◽  
Task Irrelevant ◽  
Predictive Processes

Abstract Dynamic attending theory suggests that predicting the timing of upcoming sounds can assist in focusing attention toward them. However, whether similar predictive processes are also applied to background noises and assist in guiding attention “away” from potential distractors, remains an open question. Here we address this question by manipulating the temporal predictability of distractor sounds in a dichotic listening selective attention task. We tested the influence of distractors’ temporal predictability on performance and on the neural encoding of sounds, by comparing the effects of Rhythmic versus Nonrhythmic distractors. Using magnetoencephalography we found that, indeed, the neural responses to both attended and distractor sounds were affected by distractors’ rhythmicity. Baseline activity preceding the onset of Rhythmic distractor sounds was enhanced relative to nonrhythmic distractor sounds, and sensory response to them was suppressed. Moreover, detection of nonmasked targets improved when distractors were Rhythmic, an effect accompanied by stronger lateralization of the neural responses to attended sounds to contralateral auditory cortex. These combined behavioral and neural results suggest that not only are temporal predictions formed for task-irrelevant sounds, but that these predictions bear functional significance for promoting selective attention and reducing distractibility.

scholarly journals An emergent population code in primary auditory cortex supports selective attention to spectral and temporal sound features

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joshua D. Downer ◽  
Jessica R. Verhein ◽  
Brittany C. Rapone ◽  
Kevin N. O’Connor ◽  
Mitchell L. Sutter
Keyword(s):  
Selective Attention ◽  
Auditory Cortex ◽  
Single Neuron ◽  
Primary Auditory Cortex ◽  
Population Level ◽  
Visual Object ◽  
Single Neurons ◽  
Population Code ◽  
Complex Sounds ◽  
Sound Features

ABSTRACTTextbook descriptions of primary sensory cortex (PSC) revolve around single neurons’ representation of low-dimensional sensory features, such as visual object orientation in V1, location of somatic touch in S1, and sound frequency in A1. Typically, studies of PSC measure neurons’ responses along few (1 or 2) stimulus and/or behavioral dimensions. However, real-world stimuli usually vary along many feature dimensions and behavioral demands change constantly. In order to illuminate how A1 supports flexible perception in rich acoustic environments, we recorded from A1 neurons while rhesus macaques performed a feature-selective attention task. We presented sounds that varied along spectral and temporal feature dimensions (carrier bandwidth and temporal envelope, respectively). Within a block, subjects attended to one feature of the sound in a selective change detection task. We find that single neurons tend to be high-dimensional, in that they exhibit substantial mixed selectivity for both sound features, as well as task context. Contrary to common findings in many previous experiments, attention does not enhance the single-neuron representation of attended features in our data. However, a population-level analysis reveals that ensembles of neurons exhibit enhanced encoding of attended sound features, and this population code tracks subjects’ performance. Importantly, surrogate neural populations with intact single-neuron tuning but shuffled higher-order correlations among neurons failed to yield attention-related effects observed in the intact data. These results suggest that an emergent population code not measurable at the single-neuron level might constitute the functional unit of sensory representation in PSC.SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENTThe ability to adapt to a dynamic sensory environment promotes a range of important natural behaviors. We recorded from single neurons in monkey primary auditory cortex while subjects attended to either the spectral or temporal features of complex sounds. Surprisingly, we find no average increase in responsiveness to, or encoding of, the attended feature across single neurons. However, when we pool the activity of the sampled neurons via targeted dimensionality reduction, we find enhanced population-level representation of the attended feature and suppression of the distractor feature. This dissociation of the effects of attention at the level of single neurons vs. the population highlights the synergistic nature of cortical sound encoding and enriches our understanding of sensory cortical function.

scholarly journals Spectral and spatial tuning of onset and offset response functions in auditory cortical fields A1 and CL of rhesus macaques

2017 ◽  
Vol 117 (3) ◽  
pp. 966-986 ◽  
Author(s):  
Deepa L. Ramamurthy ◽  
Gregg H. Recanzone
Keyword(s):  
Auditory Cortex ◽  
Rhesus Macaques ◽  
Primary Auditory Cortex ◽  
Evoked Responses ◽  
Neural Responses ◽  
Complex Cells ◽  
Acoustic Stimuli ◽  
Spatial Tuning ◽  
Response Profiles ◽  
The Relationship

The mammalian auditory cortex is necessary for spectral and spatial processing of acoustic stimuli. Most physiological studies of single neurons in the auditory cortex have focused on the onset and sustained portions of evoked responses, but there have been far fewer studies on the relationship between onset and offset responses. In the current study, we compared spectral and spatial tuning of onset and offset responses of neurons in primary auditory cortex (A1) and the caudolateral (CL) belt area of awake macaque monkeys. Several different metrics were used to determine the relationship between onset and offset response profiles in both frequency and space domains. In the frequency domain, a substantial proportion of neurons in A1 and CL displayed highly dissimilar best stimuli for onset- and offset-evoked responses, although even for these neurons, there was usually a large overlap in the range of frequencies that elicited onset, and offset responses and distributions of tuning overlap metrics were mostly unimodal. In the spatial domain, the vast majority of neurons displayed very similar best locations for onset- and offset-evoked responses, along with unimodal distributions of all tuning overlap metrics considered. Finally, for both spectral and spatial tuning, a slightly larger fraction of neurons in A1 displayed nonoverlapping onset and offset response profiles, relative to CL, which supports hierarchical differences in the processing of sounds in the two areas. However, these differences are small compared with differences in proportions of simple cells (low overlap) and complex cells (high overlap) in primary and secondary visual areas. NEW & NOTEWORTHY In the current study, we examine the relationship between the tuning of neural responses evoked by the onset and offset of acoustic stimuli in the primary auditory cortex, as well as a higher-order auditory area—the caudolateral belt field—in awake rhesus macaques. In these areas, the relationship between onset and offset response profiles in frequency and space domains formed a continuum, ranging from highly overlapping to highly nonoverlapping.

scholarly journals Epigenetic Markers of Aging Predict the Neural Oscillations Serving Selective Attention

2019 ◽  
Vol 30 (3) ◽  
pp. 1234-1243 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alex I Wiesman ◽  
Michael T Rezich ◽  
Jennifer O’Neill ◽  
Brenda Morsey ◽  
Tina Wang ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Selective Attention ◽  
Brain Aging ◽  
Physiological Stress ◽  
Anterior Cingulate ◽  
Gamma Activity ◽  
Chronological Age ◽  
Attention Task ◽  
Functional Changes ◽  
Age Related ◽  
The Relationship

Abstract Chronological age remains an imperfect measure of accumulated physiological stress. Biological measures of aging may provide key advantages, allowing scientists focusing on age-related functional changes to use metrics derived from epigenetic factors like DNA methylation (DNAm), which could provide greater precision. Here we investigated the relationship between methylation-based age and an essential cognitive function that is known to exhibit age-related decline: selective attention. We found that DNAm-age predicted selective attention abilities and fully mediated the relationship between selective attention and chronological age. Using neuroimaging with magnetoencephalography, we found that gamma activity in the anterior cingulate was robustly predicted by DNAm-derived biological age, revealing the neural dynamics underlying this DNAm age-related cognitive decline. Anterior cingulate gamma activity also significantly predicted behavior on the selective attention task, indicating its functional relevance. These findings suggest that DNAm age may be a better predictor of cognitive and brain aging than more traditional chronological metrics.

Evoked unit activity in auditory cortex of monkeys performing a selective attention task

1976 ◽  
Vol 117 (1) ◽  
pp. 51-68 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. Hocherman ◽  
D.A. Benson ◽  
M.H. Goldstein ◽  
H.E. Heffner ◽  
R.D. Hienz
Keyword(s):  
Selective Attention ◽  
Auditory Cortex ◽  
Unit Activity ◽  
Attention Task

scholarly journals Irrelevant Predictions: Distractor Rhythmicity Modulates Neural Encoding in Auditory Cortex

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shiri Makov ◽  
Elana Zion-Golumbic
Keyword(s):  
Selective Attention ◽  
Sensory Response ◽  
Neural Responses ◽  
Neural Encoding ◽  
Attention Task ◽  
Baseline Activity ◽  
Temporal Predictability ◽  
Task Irrelevant ◽  
Open Question ◽  
Predictive Processes

AbstractDynamic Attending Theory suggests that predicting the timing of upcoming sounds can assist in focusing attention towards them. However, whether similar predictive processes are also applied to background noises and assist in guiding attention away from potential distractors, remains an open question. Here we address this question by manipulating the temporal predictability of distractor sounds in a dichotic listening selective attention task. We tested the influence of distractors’ temporal predictability on performance and on the neural encoding of sounds, by comparing the effects of Rhythmic vs. Non-rhythmic distractors. Using Magnetoencephalography (MEG) we found that, indeed, the neural responses to both attended and distractor sounds were affected by distractors’ rhythmicity. Baseline activity preceding the onset of Rhythmic distractor sounds was enhanced relative to Non-rhythmic distractor sounds, and sensory response were suppressed. Moreover, when distractors were Rhythmic, responses to attended sounds were more strongly lateralized to the contra-lateral hemisphere. Behavioral performance also improved in the Rhythmic condition. These combined behavioral and neural results suggest that not only are temporal predictions formed for task-irrelevant sounds, but that these predictions bear functional significance for promoting selective attention and reducing distractibility.

Cognitive and affective benefits of colouring: Two randomized controlled crossover studies

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicola Jane Holt ◽  
Leah Furbert ◽  
Emily Sweetingham
Keyword(s):  
Selective Attention ◽  
Performance Measures ◽  
Divergent Thinking ◽  
Attention Task ◽  
Creative Cognition ◽  
Randomized Controlled ◽  
Mindful Attention ◽  
Crossover Studies ◽  
And Performance ◽  
Implicit Mood

The current research sought to replicate and extend work suggesting that coloring can reduce anxiety, asking whether coloring can improve cognitive performance. In two experiments undergraduates (N = 47; N = 52) colored and participated in a control condition. Subjective and performance measures of mood and mindfulness were included: an implicit mood test (Experiment 1) and a selective attention task (Experiment 2) along with a divergent thinking test. In both experiments coloring significantly reduced anxiety and increased mindfulness compared with control and baseline scores. Following coloring participants scored significantly lower on implicit fear, than the control condition, and significantly higher on selective attention and original ideation. Coloring may not only reduce anxiety, but also improve mindful attention and creative cognition.

499 Trait anxiety and erp (nd) in a selective attention task

1998 ◽  
Vol 30 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 191-192
Author(s):  
S. Hayashida ◽  
S.-I. Niwa ◽  
K. Kobayashi ◽  
K. Itoh
Keyword(s):  
Selective Attention ◽  
Trait Anxiety ◽  
Attention Task

Infant handling enhances social bonds in free-ranging rhesus macaques (Macaca mulatta)

Behaviour ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 154 (7-8) ◽  
pp. 875-907 ◽  
Author(s):  
Erica S. Dunayer ◽  
Carol M. Berman
Keyword(s):  
Macaca Mulatta ◽  
Social Bonds ◽  
Rhesus Macaques ◽  
Social Characteristics ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Fitness Effects ◽  
Early Handling ◽  
Infant Handling ◽  
Free Ranging ◽  
The Relationship

Throughout the primate order, individuals are highly motivated to handle infants that are not their own. Given the differing and often conflicting interests of the various participants in handling interactions (handler, infant, and mother), most functional hypotheses are specific to particular handling roles. Here we explore one hypothesis that may apply to all participants, but that has received relatively little attention: that handling may facilitate the formation and maintenance of social bonds. Using free-ranging rhesus macaques (Macaca mulatta) on Cayo Santiago, we examine the relationship between infant handling in the early weeks and the strength and diversity of infant social bonds months later, when infant relationships were more independent from those of their mothers. Our results largely confirm the influence of several social characteristics (kinship, rank, sex, and age) in governing handling interactions. They also provide the first evidence that early handling is associated with later social bonds that are stronger than expected based on these social characteristics. However, the enhancement of bonds is largely confined to related handlers; frequent unrelated handlers did not generally go on to form strong bonds with infants. This suggests that kinship may be a sort of prerequisite to the enhancement of social bonds via handling. Given the adaptive benefits of strong social bonds among adult primates, future research should investigate whether early infant handling may have longer term fitness effects.

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